It has become common practice for consumers to "order out" for food, e.g., pizza, have it delivered to their homes, and "dine in." Historically, the suppliers of pizza have tended to occupy only one location, and a customer's choice of a particular pizzeria has usually been based upon the quality of food and the time within which his order can be filled. In the case of franchised suppliers that provide a uniform quality of pizza, once the customer has selected a franchise, his principal consideration is the response time of the store that actually fills his order.
In those areas having more than one franchised supplier, customers typically call the location closest to their home to achieve the quickest response to their order. However, physical proximity of the store to the customer may not always be the determinative criterion. Considerations such as time of day, local traffic patterns, road construction, etc., may affect the day to day ability of the closest store to serve a particular customer. Thus a customer may mistakenly select a store that is incapable of filling his order in a timely manner.
Each franchised supplier typically subscribes to a relatively expensive telephone service that enables incoming calls to be queued for answering on a first-in-first-out basis. The employees of the franchised store are typically occupied with the preparation and delivery of the food and may, especially during peak demand hours, become too busy to answer the telephone in a timely manner to receive orders. Consequently, customers may be put on hold for unacceptable periods of time.